Seattle professor: U.S. considered using crows to get bin Laden (KUOW)

Much attention has been paid to the only four-legged member of the U.S. commander team that killed Osama bin Laden, hailed by The New York Times as the “nation’s most courageous dog.”

But a University of Washington professor says the military had once considered using another kind of animal to help find the world’s most wanted terrorist: The common crow.

Terrorist hunter? He never forgets a face (photo by Getty)

“One of the experimental branches of research that was used to try to find him was to have crows or ravens of the local area trained to identify his face,” John Marzluff, a UW wildlife sciences professor, told KUOW.

Marzluff said the military had contracted with him a few years ago, to study if crows or ravens in Afghanistan could help find bin Laden, the station said.

The Seattle professor is known for his ground-breaking research on the ability of crows to recognize human faces. In his 20 years of studying birds, Marzluff had always suspected that birds previously trapped for research seemed wary of particular scientists. They were often harder to catch.

So he tested his suspicions in a study on the Seattle campus, described in another story by The New York Times. Researchers wore caveman masks to trap and release some crows, then tested the crows’ reaction to different mask-wearers.

It turned out the crows didn’t forget. After they were freed, they scolded and screamed raucously at mask-wearers who walked under them – regardless if it was the researcher who trapped them or another volunteer, the NYT reported. If the trapper walked near the birds without the mask, the crows were fine.

On top of never forgetting, the crows apparently told their friends and offspring about the scary bird-trapping, mask-wearers, because the scolding multiplied over the years.

“So, they have a long term memory, very acute discrimination abilities, and if a group of crows knew bin Laden as an enemy, they would certainly indicate his presence when they next saw him,” Marzluff told KUOW.